What makes a great edge defender? You can go over traits and production and add them together any way you choose, but when I spoke with Chiefs right tackle Mitchell Schwartz recently for the “Speaking of Everything” podcast, he talked about the importance of having multiple ways to get to the quarterback.
“On the whole, it’s guys who can do multiple things,” Schwartz said of the pass-rushers who give him fits on the field. “If a guy is really good at tone thing, for the most part, you can stop it. If it’s Justin Smith power, there’s only so much you can do against that. But for the most part, if a guy can only do one thing, it’s not the best version of it you’ve ever seen. If a guy is super-quick and that’s all he can do, you get him off the [snap], and he’s done. If a guy is really strong and only has a bull-rush, and you’re sitting on it, there are things you can do to disrupt the timing, and there’s not much else he can do. The thing [the best pass-rushers] can do is any combination of three moves — some variation of the inside move, some variation of the speed or outside move, and then, the power move. If you’ve got the ability to do two of those, let alone three, the offensive lineman doesn’t have anything he can wait for or predict.”
The edge defenders on this list can beat you in multiple ways, and from multiple gaps. And though the primary focus is on quarterback disruption, you’re not going to be one of the NFL’s top 11 pass-rushers if you can’t break off pressure to stop the run in an instant. And if you can drop back in basic coverage… well, that helps as well. Here are the best players when it comes to presenting impossible math problems to opposing offensive linemen.
Honorable Mentions
The Washington Football Team now has five first-round picks along its defensive line with the addition of second-overall pick Chase Young, but Ryan Kerrigan led the edge guys with just 37 total pressures. Matt Ioannidis, a fifth-round defensive tackle out of Temple in 2016, was the team’s best pass-rusher last season. So, there’s that. As far as guys who were tough to keep off the Top 11, let’s start with San Francisco’s Arik Armstead, who totaled 73 pressures and had 42 stops, tied for third-best in the league. Everson Griffen had 70 pressures and 30 stops for the Vikings last season and is currently an unsigned free agent. We’d expect that to change soon, depending on an actual football season happening. Brandon Graham of the Eagles seems perennially underrated because he gets more pressures than sacks, and he amassed 68 pressures in 2019, along with 38 stops. Harold Landry III of the Titans is an up-and-comer who could have a breakout season in 2020, and the Falcons certainly hope Dante Fowler Jr. can keep up the career-year pace he set last season with the Rams.
Now, onto the top guys.
11. Cameron Jordan, New Orleans Saints
A remarkably consistent player, Jordan has at least 70 total pressures in each of the last five seasons, and only Chandler Jones and Aaron Donald have more sacks since 2015 than Jordan’s 58. Moreover, Jordan has maintained that consistency through some realty dismal times for New Orleans’ defense — the three years from 2014 through 2016 where the defense never ranked higher than 28th overall in points allowed, Drew Brees was passing for about 20,000 yards per season, and the franchise could never get above 7-9. Things have been better for that defense of late, but Jordan has been badly under-represented for the most part when it comes to complementary pass-rushers to help him avoid double teams. No matter, though — in 2019, Jordan set a career high with 16.5 sacks, and his 84 total pressures was his highest mark since he put up 88 in 2017. One of the best outside rushers in the league, Jordan is also capable of kicking inside the giving guards more trouble than they’d prefer.
10. Von Miller, Denver Broncos
Mitchell Schwartz again, this time on Von Miller: “Spin move? Best in the game. Quickness? Best in the game. He’s sneaky powerful, which is something I think he’s worked on in the past few years. People don’t really know about it. I mean, he literally launches guys into quarterbacks. You watch that, and you’re like, ‘What am I supposed to do with this guy?'”
It’s a question that Titans left tackle Taylor Lewan is probably still trying to answer in his head after this play.
2019 was a relatively down season for Miller as he battled through injuries — his eight sacks marked the first time he didn’t hit double-digits since 2013. But he still amassed 77 total pressures, good for eighth in the league, including a remarkable 58 quarterback hurries, and his 28 stops speak to the fact that he’s more than just a pass-rusher. Miller will be 31 coming into the 2020 season, and that’s a time when most speed-rushers tend to regress, but a healthy Von Miller should still present trouble for opposing tackles for a while yet.
Just ask Mitchell Schwartz — or Taylor Lewan.
9. Khalil Mack, Chicago Bears
Speaking of edge defenders coming off down years, here’s what Khalil Mack had to say at the end of the 2019 season about a year in which he totaled 8.5 sacks and 70 total pressures — not horrible numbers, but when you have Mack’s talent, more is expected.
“I’m going to start with myself, pick up the film like I do after every season and work on the things I need to work on and get ready for the next one,” Mack said, per the Chicago Tribune. “My therapy is being a part of the grind. My grind is not going to stop this year. I can’t take too many breaks. I’m looking forward to it in that sense.”
Injuries along the Bears’ defensive line, especially to superior defensive tackle Akiem Hicks, were part of the problem. But even when single-teamed in 2019, Mack lacked his usual ability to take apart anybody who blocked him, and he seemed stalemated more often than expected in those instances. A mid-season ankle injury certainly affected his burst, but it didn’t slow his effort to get to the quarterback.
Two down years in a row from Khalil Mack? Highly unlikely. Expect a motivated force in 2020.
8. Joey Bosa, Los Angeles Chargers
Bosa seems to have never gotten his just due as a pass-rusher — he’s had to share the limelight with Melvin Ingram with the Chargers, and younger brother Nick took the family name to new heights as a player in his rookie season of 2019. But make no mistake — when it comes to effectiveness through technique, especially in setting up tackles to go where he wants them to go, Bosa has few peers in the league. Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari, who allowed just two sacks in 762 pass-blocking snaps and made the Pro Bowl in 2019, would testify to that.
Bosa bounced back from an injury-plagued 2018 season to register 11.5 sacks and 72 total pressures in 2019, and no other edge defender could match his 49 stops. He’s one of the most complete players at his position in the NFL, whether people recognize it or not.
7. Myles Garrett, Cleveland Browns
Unfortunately, Garrett’s most infamous on-field action in 2019 — swinging his helmet at Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph — cut his season from 16 games to 10 with an indefinite suspension. Nonetheless, the Browns exercised Garrett’s fifth-year option in April, and then made that redundant in mid-July with a five-year, $125 million contract extension that makes the first overall pick in the 2017 draft the highest-paid edge defender on a per-year basis in the league.
When he’s been on the field, Garrett has done a lot to justify the Browns’ faith in him.
Garrett put up 10 sacks in just 10 games last season, with 49 total pressures and 20 stops. At 6-foot-4 and 272 pounds, Garrett brings an unusual combination of size, speed, power, and technique to the equation. As long as he can keep his head on straight, the 24-year-old Garrett should be one of the league’s premier players at his position for a long time.
6. T.J. Watt, Pittsburgh Steelers
The Steelers took J.J. Watt’s younger brother in the first round of the 2017 draft, and Watt made the Pro Bowl in his second season with 13 sacks, 52 total pressures, and 47 stops. But Watt ratcheted things up even higher as a pass-rusher in 2019, with 14.5 sacks and 81 total pressures. Pittsburgh led the league with 180 total pressures and a pressure rate of 30.5%, and Watt was the force multiplier in that equation.
Not only is Watt one of the best around-the-edge rushers in the league, he also has a great feel on stunts and games — you’ll often see him jumping two gaps to get to the quarterback on plays when he’s asked to switch places after the snap with other defensive stalwarts like Cameron Heyward. His excellent season would have received more national focus had the Steelers not finished 8-8 due to an absolutely horrific quarterback situation, but that could easily change in 2020.
5. Shaquil Barrett, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Barrett was the winner of 2019’s “From Out of Nowhere” award following his signing with the Buccaneers before the 2019 season, amassing a league-high 19.5 sacks after five seasons with the Broncos in which he struggled for starting reps and put up just 14 total takedowns. All it took was an opportunity in Todd Bowles’ aggressive defense for Barrett to display the strength to break through double teams, the speed to close to quarterbacks on the move, and and burst to make slower offensive tackles regret their hesitancy. Barrett did all that on a one-year, $4 million deal, making him one of the NFL’s more remarkable bargains in recent years. When you sign a guy to a replacement-level contract and he responds with 82 total pressures, he’s worth a lot more. The Bucs will have Barrett on the franchise tag for $15,828 million in 2020 — perhaps to ensure that he wasn’t a one-year wonder. The tape shows that he wasn’t, and the team would be wise to invest in his services beyond this upcoming season.
4. Chandler Jones, Arizona Cardinals
Which NFL player has the most sacks since the 2012 season? If you guessed Chandler Jones with 96, you would be correct. Both with the Patriots (who selected him in the first round of the 2012 draft out of Syracuse) and the Cardinals (his team since 2016), Jones has done his thing in relative obscurity, but always at a high level. 2019 marked a career high in sacks with 19.0 and total pressures with 75, and he led the NFL in both sacks (17.0) and tackles for loss (28.0) in 2017. Jones’ suddenness off the snap allows him to combine power and speed in interesting ways, and he has the diagnostic abilities to know when to stop heading for the pocket and peel off to take after a running quarterback or running back. He’s always suffered from a lack of recognition in relation to his on-field accomplishments, but Jones has been one of the top handful of edge defenders in the NFL for a long time.
3. Danielle Hunter, Minnesota Vikings
With his second straight 14.5-sack season, Hunter became the youngest player in NFL history (or at least since 1982, when the sack became an official statistic) to record at least 50 sacks in his career. He did so at age 25 with room to spare — Hunter has 54.5 regular-season sacks and 3.5 more takedowns in the postseason. Per Football Outsiders, he’s also one of four players to finish in the Top 10 in quarterback hurries in each of the last two seasons — and he’s at least three years younger than any of the others (Cameron Jordan, DeMarcus Lawrence, and Aaron Donald). Not bad for a guy who lasted until the third round of the 2015 draft as an athletically superior but very raw prospect. Now, he’s filled in all the blanks. Hunter has the straight-line speed to turn himself into nightmare fuel for any tackle who’s slow off the snap, his inside move is a work of art, and he has the athleticism to roll step-for-step with the most mobile of quarterbacks. Last season, he finished third in the league with 97 total pressures, adding in 40 stops for good measure, and it seems that the arrow is still pointing up.
2. Nick Bosa, San Francisco 49ers
Most rookie pass-rushers tend to struggle a bit when they get to the NFL. The 20-hour rule in college football (which, of course, every coach follows to the letter, ha ha) prevents coaches from teaching their pass-rushers all the moves that will help them succeed at the next level. And now, they’re going against seasoned practitioners at the highest level, as opposed to slow, fat guys they can simply run around. All that is prelude to the notion that Nick Bosa had one of the more remarkable rookie campaigns we’ve seen from any edge defender. Though his nine regular-season sacks didn’t come close to the rookie record of 14.5 set by Tennessee’s Jevon Kearse in 1999, Bosa made up for that with an absolutely incendiary postseason in which he registered four more sacks, and a 12-pressure performance in Super Bowl LIV that would have had him on the precipice of an MVP award had the Chiefs not performed another one of their comeback specials.
There isn’t much the Ohio State alum can’t do to get to the quarterback. Speed, power, versatility of moves… he’s got it all. And he’s able to set up opposing blockers as if he’s been in the league for years. Perhaps he’s picked up a few things from his older brother.
Bosa finished second only to Green Bay’s Za’Darius Smith with 102 total pressures in the 2019 season; to see him wind up on top of that list in any of the next few seasons would come as no surprise.
1. Za’Darius Smith, Green Bay Packers
It’s not that Smith was unspectacular during his four seasons with the Ravens — he put up 18.5 sacks in that time, including 8.5 and 61 total pressures in 2018. But after he signed a four-year, $66 million contract with the Packers in March, 2019, all hell broke loose. Paired with fellow free-agent acquisition Preston Smith on the edge, and the perennially underrated Kenny Clark on the inside, Smith was able to work opposing offensive linemen as never before. The 15.5 sacks in the 2019 season were nice, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Smith led the NFL with 105 total pressures, the most by any edge defender since Von Miller matched that total in 2015, and he did it from all over the field — everywhere from wide-nine end to inside linebacker. Wherever he aligned, trouble was coming for opposing quarterbacks. As great as he was on the edge, he was perhaps more effective inside the tackles.
Smith could make himself a nightmare for centers as well, as he did on this rep in his 3.5-sack game against the Vikings in December.
There was no edge defender more effective in 2019 than Za’Darius Smith, and there’s no reason to think the same won’t be true in 2020.
